Adventures Across Random Dreamscapes
in which I try to catch up with Eight across many different times and places
(I had this dream in April of 2016, during a time of aimlessness)
Dream Events
I know I don't remember quite all the places and times I visited, but here are the ones I do remember, in order:
#1: I was outside a brick house with very wide brick porches, kinda like this one, and the Sixth Doctor was trying to save a very tiny and adorable Eighth Doctor from a bunch of gangsters trying to catch him. Six and Eight fell in a pond in front of the house, but only Eight emerged, now looking more like a teenager, and he ran off, with the Seventh Doctor running some crafty interference.
#2: I was with a friend of mine and his family, and we were taking multiple buses to the city to get groceries. Someone had asked us to care for a severely autistic man near us on the bus, to make sure he got back to his assisted living home; the man had a light blue hoodie on, the hood drawn tight around his face, and he didn't speak much, but I thought I was getting through to him. He traveled with us silently until we got done with our errand, and as we got off the last bus, he took down his hood, revealing a big ol' head of curls I recognized--it was Eight in disguise! I followed him all the way to the assisted living home, to make sure he got home safely, but I never could actually catch up to him.
#3: I was with another friend of mine and her family, and we were doing laundry at her house when I came across a very ragged, holey tourist shirt from an old beach trip. Suddenly I was there at the beach, and there was a deep, narrow gully near the ocean that was full of various gemstones and metal ores. I thought Eight might be here, but I followed a few of the guys who were leaving the gully with big wheelbarrows full of stuff, and I found out that they had been stealing jewelry and gemstone art instead, using some kind of acid to melt away the gold and leave the gems. Turned out Eight was nowhere near this sad, wasteful place, which was all the better.
#4: I was looking for Eight among the members of a theater troupe who lived in a really weird narrow six-story house, which was decorated with a lot of cobwebs, plaster, and sheer curtains (strange aesthetic, I know). I searched this house from basement to attic but never found him, though I did find quite a few crazy characters otherwise! LOL
The last section of the dream is the one I remember most (as is the case with most dreams), so it has a TON more detail:
I was walking after dusk along a deserted Victorian-era street (cobblestones, hand-lit streetlamps, really pretty ambiance) when I heard a man and a woman singing a beautiful duet somewhere behind me. I turned, and saw Eight and a woman walking together--by turns this woman was sometimes his companion Grace (from the TV Movie), sometimes she was Charley or Lucie (Eight's companions from the Big Finish audio adventures), and sometimes I didn't recognize her at all. The woman always sung the light and playful melody, and her words were clearer, with Eight providing a gentle tenor harmony. Here are some of the verses they sang:
When I was 18 and you were 30
We lived the love of our twenties
So what if I was younger?
What was to do?--Nothing at all!
When I was 30 and you were 20
We lived the love of our thirties
So what if I was older?
What was to do?--Nothing at all!
(The song seemed to wistfully illustrate how Eight could jump around in time as the Doctor, and how he could regenerate, but the human companions he had could not do the same.)
But as I watched (and I felt like I was seeing it all through a movie camera, it was so cinematographic), they sung several verses together with the ever-changing woman growing older and fainter in the song each time. At last, she vanished, leaving Eight standing alone in the street, humming the tenor part that sounded so lonely without its melody.
At this point, I wasn't content to just watch any longer--I burst into the scene, came up behind Eight and gave him a giant bear hug. (Somehow he wasn't surprised, LOL) "You know how much I love you?" I said in this baby-talk voice, hugging him. "You're frickin' adorable. You're my precious little chicken nugget." (I about woke myself up laughing at this xD)
I finally let him go, and he faced me, smiling. "You really think so?"
"Yeah!"
But even as I said it, I saw his smile kind of faltering, and the tears standing in his eyes. "They're all gone, you know," he said, and I knew he meant his companions.
"Aw, honey, don't be guilty about that!" I said. "They got to travel with you, they got to live more than most of us humans ever get to!"
"Yes," he said, but that word was heavy, like he meant "Yes, but it would have been better if they had never met me."
I hugged him again, and gave him an affectionate noogie because he seemed so much shorter than I was now (LOL precious smol bby Eight). "Don't ever be guilty that you couldn't save them. Nobody could. You did your best by them and they knew that."
He smiled, somehow looking sad and happy at the same time, and we kept walking along the street as I woke up.